


Do you notice?

by minweasel



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Dark Hope Mikaelson, F/F, Oblivious Hope, Pissed Josie Saltzman
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29432505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minweasel/pseuds/minweasel
Summary: “You’ve been avoiding me,” said Josie, with absolutely no hint of subtlety.Hope deflected, “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said.\\Set sometime between 3x03 and 3x04, Josie finally gets fed up with Hope pretending she doesn't exist.
Relationships: Hope Mikaelson/Josie Saltzman
Comments: 46
Kudos: 273





	1. one

As much as it pained her to say, Hope had been avoiding her, she was sure of it. She hated it, and yet she was sure of it. As to ‘why’ Hope had been avoiding her? Well, she was still in the dark on that one. 

Admittedly, Hope kept to herself, - both in years prior and in the days before Hope had entered her subconscious - and yet, Josie hadn’t seen this coming. She wasn’t exactly sure what she had been expecting, perhaps a warm welcome back, or maybe even a glance in her direction, but whatever she had pictured had not come to fruition. 

Yes, they went to a school with a decently sized student body, but Hope’s room was across from hers for goodness sake. Would it have been that hard to stop by? Had Hope simply forgotten she existed? No, Josie wouldn’t accept that. She had put blood, sweat, and plenty of tears into cultivating a relationship- no, a  _ friendship _ with Hope, she wasn’t going to let it go. 

But Hope wasn’t exactly making it easy for her. She had made no attempt to reach out, and whenever they had been in the same room, Hope would stand up and leave. Josie had even tried calling after her, but Hope never showed the slightest sign of having heard her. 

Although Josie couldn’t exactly call this intentional, it seemed far too deliberate to be coincidental. And after all that they had been through in the past few weeks, Josie had hoped for just a little more.

One  _ fucking _ word.

One _ fucking _ look.

Something was all she was asking for, just  _ something _ . Was that too much for Hope to manage? 

Josie had gone through it all in her head and surely something was wrong. Hope would have said something by now. But then again, Hope wasn’t avoiding anybody else, she had spoken to Landon, to her father, to the new counselor, and yet she had to hear about Hope’s umpteenth breakup and inevitable reconciliation with Landon from Lizzie.

Josie was fed up with it. Perhaps she wouldn’t have said anything a year ago, but she had grown. She had a voice. A voice Hope had aided her in honing. A voice Hope wasn’t going to ignore, she would make sure of it.

  
  


She knocked on Hope's door… no response. She knocked again… no response. She knocked a third time… no response. Evidently, Hope was getting pretty good at ignoring her.

“Hope,” she started, “Can we talk?”. She waited for a second, and there was no response. Shocker. 

She opted to give Hope the benefit of the doubt, perhaps she had actually left her room for once. So she waited, and she waited. She sat on the floor opposite Hope’s door until a hall monitor passed her, giving her a 5-minute ‘lights out’ warning.

_ Screw this _ , she thought. She knocked on the door once more to no avail. Either Hope was an actual  _ bitch _ , or she wasn’t in her room and would be roaming the halls of Salvatore past ‘lights out’. Or both.

She put a hand to the wall on her left and siphoned, “Invisique,” she muttered under her breath. She decided on ‘cluing in’ Lizzie on her whereabouts later on, and walked right past her own room. She turned the corner and walked down the old and rickety staircase as quietly as possible. 

There was no sound coming from her father’s office so she moved on, opening the door to every classroom and checking every corner. She found no one. She checked the library, walking down every aisle, checking behind every desk and every curtain, and found no one. She made her way to the gym and heard the dull  _ thump _ of a fist repeatedly hitting a punching bag, over and over.

The closer Josie got, the louder the sound became, and the more worried Josie was becoming for the person's poor knuckles, which were surely bloodied and raw, even if it was a wolf - which it probably was. Neither the vampires nor the witches tended to use the gym. And never past  _ god knows _ was time it was.

As she turned the corner and the figure faced away from her came into view, she could finally make out the ragged breathing of the girl standing in the dead center of the gym. She studied the girl. It was Hope, Josie could tell.

She could tell by the long auburn hair, by the way she held herself, by the way her fists were about as high on the punching bag as Josie’s knees. She could tell.

As Hope was yet to notice her, she made no move to open her mouth or to speak, she just waited, weighing up in her mind how best to approach this. She did seem very stalker-esk, she knew that. If she were in Hope’s position, she would find herself a tad creepy. And yet she would never ignore Hope for days on end. She would never have put herself in this position in the first place.

She took a step forward, not bothering to be quiet - although that didn’t seem to matter, Hope’s sole focus was on beating the crap out of her punching bag. She took another step and walked forward and around the walls of the gym until she could make out Hope’s side profile. 

Her hair was up in a pony-tail, although Josie had been able to see that from behind. What she hadn’t seen, was Hope’s eyes. They were no longer their usual, piercing ocean blue, rather a deep yellow, bordering on golden.

It was then that Hope must have realized she was being watched. She took one final swing at the punching bag before making an attempt to get her breathing under control and her eyes shifted from yellow back to Blue. Hope spun around to take a look around the room. Her eyes landed on Josie within seconds. 

She watched the ‘fight or flight’ response trigger in Hope’s mind. She watched as her eyes flitted to the door, as her legs stayed rooted to the ground, and yet she seemed ready to run at a moment’s notice. She watched, and all the while said nothing. Arms crossed and head held high, she took a step forward. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was bored so now this exists. i'll put out another chapter soon.
> 
> let me know what you think :)
> 
> follow me on twitter @minweasel_id


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i get the basic gist of my idea from the hosie show? maybe...

Hope was unaware of the battle raging inside her mind. To her, all was clear, all was simple. 

The voice in her mind had told her to stay away, that Josie would tear her apart, and she listened. So when Josie stepped forward, and the voice in her mind told her to step back, Hope took a step back. It was as simple as that.

She saw the hurt written all over Josie’s face, watched as she tried to cover it up, but she felt nothing. Which was a little bit odd in her opinion. 

She thought back to when she first returned from Malivore. At the time, she had put Josie’s feelings above her own. She had given up the chance to be with Landon, just in case, it would hurt Josie. Now, as she watched Josie tilt her head up to the ceiling, presumably to blink away tears, she felt nothing. Nothing. 

“Hope,” said Josie, “Can we talk?” her voice wavering as she repeated the words she had said an hour earlier. But it seemed meaningless to Hope, bordering on trivial and it fell onto deft ears.

Hope stared, she observed, trying as hard as she could to feel. Anger, sadness, empathy, anything. She wanted to care, but she didn’t. 

So she took her time unwrapping her hand wraps and dropping them on the floor, her focus on Josie unwavering. Josie opened her mouth to speak again but said nothing, apparently at a loss for words. Hope certainly had nothing to say, not now at least. But she had to say something. She wasn’t sure why that was but she knew she had to say something. 

She thought back to the moments after she woke from her coma. What was it she had wanted to say? _Are you okay?_ No that wasn’t it, it was _how are you feeling?_ Because she knew that if she asked Josie if she was okay, she would have said yes, and the conversation would have ended there. She knew that then, but she didn’t care now. 

After a while, she decided on “Goodnight Josie.” She spun on her heel and walked out the door.

She heard a voice yell after her, heard footsteps following behind her, felt a hand on her shoulder, followed by a tug on her wrist. But she shrugged it off and kept walking. As she turned the corner, she thought she heard a sob and she froze. She felt this pull, this gut-wrenching need to go check on the girl, to comfort her. But the voice in her head told her to keep walking, so she kept walking.

  
  
  


Josie stood. 

And she stared.

She sat on the gym mat.

And she cried. 

She cried, and she starred, and she waited for it to pass.

She didn’t bother holding back the tears, she knew it’d be no use. She was too far gone. 

After a while, she wasn’t sure how long, she pushed herself off of the ground and she walked back to her room.

At the bottom of the old staircase, she paused for a second, holding her palm flat to the wall. She started siphoning and muttered in a barely audible whisper, “Invisique.” Josie wasn’t really expecting to find anyone, it was merely a precaution.

As quietly as possible, she slipped into her room. 

The lights were on, which wasn’t really a surprise. What was surprising was Lizzie, sat up on her bed, straight as an arrow, tensed like a bowstring, and yet fast asleep, her head slumped to the side. It couldn’t have been comfortable but Josie wasn’t going to wake her, she wasn’t quite prepared to face the wrath that was Lizzie Saltzman. She’d deal with that tomorrow.

She slipped off her shoes as to make less noise, placing them in the corner of the room. 

Quickly and quietly, she changed into more comfortable clothing, brushed her teeth, and tied her hair into braids. She turned off the light and climbed into bed. 

As she stared up into oblivion, she noted the sting in her eyes. They burned. The tears that had run down her face had dried, leaving her feeling shriveled and bare. Perhaps she should have washed her face, but she couldn’t bring herself to move anymore.

She closed her eyes.

_How dare she_ , Josie thought. Who the hell did Hope think she was? She may be a Mikelson, but she was more than that. Maybe Hope could have gotten away with a stunt like that 2 years ago, but not anymore. Back then, Hope could get away with whatever she wanted. 

The student body - the witches in particular - talked a big game, but when it came down to it, the girl terrified them. Hope would walk into a room and they would run out. Back then, Josie rarely ever bothered standing up to Hope, she knew she’d never get anywhere. But that was then, and this was now.

Now, they were friends. Josie trusted Hope and Hope trusted Josie. But apparently, that had flown right out the window because Hope refused to speak with her. Just her.

Earlier in the day, Josie had spotted Hope talking to Landon in the Library, speaking as animated as ever. She laughed, she smiled, she looked happy, a stark contrast to the girl Josie had spoken, or _not spoken_ with.

Josie tried to rid her thoughts of Hope, of everything, but it was useless.

Was Josie being selfish? Was she asking too much of Hope? The girl had ultimately saved her life after all. She had been there when the others hadn’t.

But something gnawed at Josie’s insides. She knew, were she in Hope’s position now, she’d do things differently. She’d do better - although Josie doubted it would be all that difficult, Hope was setting an astoundingly low bar.

Josie never could have asked Hope to put her life on the line for her, but she did. She never asked the girl to pull out all the stops, but she had. And Josie certainly never asked Hope to put Kaleb into the therapy box, and yet, she did that too. 

  
How the _fuck_ did they go from that… to this. To Hope running at the sight of her, to half-hearted glares and to silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do you want more of Hope's perspective? how are we feeling on that?
> 
> let me know what you think :)


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long, I turn 16 tomorrow and ended up celebrating over the weekend.
> 
> I also started writing from Hope’s perspective before realizing it would fit better later on in the story. So more from Hope will come soon.

Josie wasn’t an idiot. She knew something was wrong with Hope. 

Hope could be closed off, she could get snappy, she could be… well,  _ Hope _ . But she wasn’t like this. Never like this.

Hope had hurt Josie, and she knew it. She knew and yet she did nothing about it. Hadn’t tried to comfort her, or make an attempt to apologize. For days. 

That simply wasn’t Hope. 

So Josie hadn’t tried to find her. Hadn’t tried to speak with her. 

She’d been avoiding her actually. 

The more rational side of her knew something was wrong, that it wasn’t really Hope, and that there was a reason she had singled her out. But the more emotional side really didn’t care about all of that. The more emotional side only cared that Hope hated her.

Well, maybe not  _ hate _ . But she certainly didn’t seem all that fond of her.

  
  
  


She hadn’t said anything to Lizzie prior to her little attempt at a conversation with Hope, because there wouldn’t have been much Lizzie could do other than tell her she was imagining things. 

But now she knew she wasn’t imagining things, and she knew something was wrong, she knew there was something to be fixed. That was something Lizzie could help with.

Josie told her a few days later, and naturally, Lizzie took it brilliantly. 

She stood and stormed towards the door, yelling, “ _ I’ll see you in court _ ,” as the door slammed behind her. 

Naturally, Josie ran after her which was good because apparently, Lizzie had been on her way to go ‘ _ murder the little shit _ ’. 

Realistically she never would have ended up in court because the school would hush it up and it wouldn’t have even worked anyway. There was no world in which Lizzie won in a fight against the girl. And, as Josie had explained, confronting Hope would get them nowhere. She had tried that and all it had gotten her was  _ livid _ .

Even so, Lizzie was all for the nuclear option but eventually agreed to keep the knives at bay. There wasn’t really a plan per se but considering Hope was actually talking to Lizzie, all she really had to do was pay attention. At least that’s what they were hoping.

For a hot second, they had considered telling their father and asking for his help, but with his track record, they figured he’d most likely lock Hope in one of the Werewolf transition cells until he figured out what was wrong. Which, knowing him, could be a while. 

  
  
  


Over the last few days, Josie had never, not once sought out Hope. Yet she had appeared to be around each and every corner. Hope starred when she had previously ignored. And now that she - well, Lizzie - wanted to find her, she was nowhere to be found.

They didn’t really have to start now, as Lizzie had said countless times, but Josie was starting to worry. She convinced Lizzie to knock on Hope’s door and yell at her to come out, but there was nothing.

So Josie, as she had done a couple of nights prior, searched the school. She opened every door, checked every corner, looked behind every curtain. She checked the gym too but it was empty too.

Apparently, Hope had a thing for wandering off.

This time, Josie didn’t go searching for her. Well admittedly, she already had just spent the better part of a half-hour searching for her, but she wouldn’t continue to look, wouldn’t think about her. It. The plan. 

Or lack thereof.

Instead, she caught up on the work she had missed, had dinner, and spent an hour consulting Lizzie on how best to approach MG. Actually, she spent most of that hour poking fun at Lizzie.

It’s not like Lizzie wouldn’t have done the exact same thing to her. In fact, Lizzie  _ had _ done the exact same thing any time she or anyone else had a crush. Subtlety had never been her strong suit.

Josie was deflecting, she knew that. But it’s not like she had any other options. Everywhere she looked, there was another reminder. 

“ _ It’s actually kind of beautiful _ ,” Josie would think every time she looked at the foot of her bed.

“ _ You’re a trusting person _ ,” Hope had said, “ _ And you’re more powerful than you know _ .”

Josie had paced around her room for a while, never quite acknowledging the weird look Lizzie was giving her. She couldn’t stop pacing. She knew if she did, her eyes would stray to the bed.

Her eyes strayed to the bed.

“ _ I miss you _ .” That’s what Hope had told her. She told her she missed her. That she missed the super squad, she missed classes, she missed Lizzie, and she missed  _ her _ . 

And truth be told, Josie missed Hope. She missed her then and she missed her now. 

She missed the girl who wouldn’t come back to one of the only places she had ever called home just in case it made Josie uncomfortable.

“ _ I wanted to know if it was okay with you if I came back to school _ .”

She missed the girl who wouldn’t tell anybody who she was because she didn’t want to risk hurting Josie. Hope’s methods were certainly questionable, there was no denying that. But she had done it because she cared.

Josie groaned, running a hand through her hair as she did so. 

It was at this point that Lizzie dropped the act. She had been pretending to read a book for the last few minutes but they both knew she hated reading.

“Go for a walk or something,” Lizzie said, “You can’t run a marathon in our room.”

  
  
  


With Lizzie’s eyes on her, Josie wordlessly put on some shoes, pulled on a cardigan, and slipped out the door, closing it softly behind her. It wasn’t until she stepped outside that she released the breath she hadn’t quite realized she was holding.

She wasn’t quite sure where she was going. She didn’t spare the old mill and the bottles scattered across the floor a single glance as she passed it.

She made her way into the woods, not going too far in for the fear of getting lost. Yet she was far enough away from school that the light from Salvatore was only just reaching her. 

  
As such, Josie barely registered the outline of a person on the ground to her left. But she heard the shout they let out loud and clear. She spun around just in time to see  _ something _ take a swipe at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no clue if this is any good but I think the next chapters a bit more interesting.
> 
> let me know what you think :)


	4. four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! And thank you for the birthday wishes :)

Josie didn’t try to start up a conversation with Hope again.

The roles were reversed now. Every time Hope would enter a room, Josie would leave, and whenever Hope found Josie staring at her, Josie would be the first to look away.

At first, Hope didn’t mind, in fact, she preferred it. But after a while, it just felt wrong. 

Not seeing Josie felt wrong.

She didn’t need to speak with her, in fact, she didn’t want to. She couldn’t. But just seeing her, knowing that she was safe, was - or at least, it had been - enough. 

For some reason, now that Josie wasn’t down every corridor, wasn’t trying to find her and corner her every chance she got, Hope felt a little strange. It wasn’t quite worrying, but she felt the need to ensure Josie was safe. 

She didn’t care if Josie was crying herself to sleep, or if she couldn’t get out of bed in the morning, but for some reason, even if she wasn’t happy, Hope needed her to be safe.

It was a little annoying. Actually, it was very annoying. She could stop herself from caring about anyone, even Josie, but there was just something-  _ something _ there. And that stupid  _ something _ wouldn’t go away.

In the days following the incident in the gym, Hope found herself searching for Josie, even when Landon’s arm was around her shoulder.  _ Especially when Landon’s arm was around her shoulder _ , she noted.

Once, she found herself just outside of the twin’s room, straining to hear a voice, to hear Josie. Then she caught herself.

It was then that the voice in her head decided to make another appearance. ‘ _ She’ll know, she’ll know _ ,’ it had said. It repeated those words over and over.

Exactly what Josie would  _ know _ if she found Hope lurking outside her room, other than the fact Hope was a creep, she wasn’t sure. 

But she listened nevertheless.

It was as easy as breathing, as blinking. It was as easy as pretending she was still in love with Landon. 

It was easy to pretend his romantic gestures meant something, that she believed him when he said he would never leave her. It was easy with him. 

It was easy because he wasn’t as bright or as quick-witted as Josie. He paid attention alright, but not to  _ her _ . Never to her.

He paid attention to Hope Mikaelson, to the tribrid. He paid attention to the girl he fell in love with, not who she had become. So it was easy with him. Easy to pretend when he saw her as untouchable, emotionless, reserved, and unexpressive. 

It was why he hadn’t noticed that she had changed. 

She had barely registered it either.

She knew that she had changed, but she couldn’t summon the energy to care. To care that she had changed or to care at all. 

It was all too confusing to think about. So she simply didn’t. 

It was as simple as that.

Like in the gym. She didn’t think, she just did.

But whenever she was alone, whenever she had nothing to do, and the thought crossed her mind, she didn’t understand. She didn’t understand why she was content speaking with Landon, and Rafael, and Lizzie, but not Josie. Nevertheless, it was a passing thought, she didn’t dwell on it. 

  
  
  


Hope was bored. So she went for a run. Like an actual run. 

As a human.

There was a party running at the old mill so running as a wolf wouldn’t have been an option anyway.

She ran and she ran, only stopping once when a figure came into view. She paused and flung them against the nearest tree before recognizing the figure as MG.

Oh right.

Party.

She let him go, and mumbled something under her breath. Whether it was a ‘ _ sorry _ ’ or a ‘ _ don’t sneak up on people like that _ ’, MG hadn’t heard.

After god knows how long, she stopped running when yet another figure appeared out of the corner of her eye. She wasn’t sure how long it had been since she had last stopped, and wasn’t quite sure if the party was still running. 

Not wanting to risk throwing another unsuspecting student against a tree, she waited until the figure came into view before she made her move.

This, as it turns out, had been a mistake.

A big, disgusting  _ something _ stepped through the trees and into her line of vision.

This time around, it was Hope’s turn to get slammed against a tree. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


She kicked the thing with as much power as she could muster to get it the hell off of her. It sort of worked, leaving about a meter between them and giving her the second she needed to regain her balance.

Hope didn’t think twice. “ _ Tenebris anima vestra con _ -” she started. 

But she froze the moment she recognized the words pouring from her mouth. It was a death spell. She didn’t even know a death spell. At least not by heart.

She should have learned from her mistake mere moments ago, and yet she bought her back another visit to the tree.

Hope grunted as she stood, glaring at the thing in front of her all the while. 

_ If looks could kill _ , Hope thought,  _ she really wouldn’t be in this situation. _

She ran at it, jumping up to claw at its face. But she never quite got there. 

Somehow she never quite managed to kick at it with the power she normally would have done, and yet whenever she opened her mouth, the only spell that would come out was the death spell. 

So she was flung against tree after tree, hit the floor more times than she could count before she fell limp. 

The thing - she still wasn’t sure what it was - stalked towards her. For some strange reason, she felt no fear. She wasn’t afraid. All  _ she _ felt was panic, pure and unadulterated panic. 

As she readied herself for the hit, the words replayed over and over again, “ _ Tenebris anima vestra contundito morem _ .” But she didn’t use them. She wasn’t quite sure why she wouldn’t. Perhaps it was because she had no idea where they had come from, or maybe because she hadn’t used black magic in over a year. Either way, she didn’t say a word.

She didn’t make a sound.

  
  
  


And then she shouted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you guys actually following what's happening? 
> 
> let me know what you think :)


	5. five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning (I think? possibly?)  
> mentions of cutting sort of, but it's part of a spell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry for the wait!

Looking back on the moment, Josie registered the look of sheer terror on Hope’s face, she could see it written all over her. 

Looking back, she could see it all unfold across her face. The moment she had snapped.

Looking back the following morning, Josie figured she should have realized that it was Hope - as that was something she hadn’t realized until she came to. Who else would have gone wandering into the woods in the pitch black without telling anybody except Hope? And herself of course. 

Josie had no idea what had happened between the moment she had found Hope, and the moment she woke up. She was back in her room with no idea how she had gotten there.

Well, actually, she had an inkling. It wasn’t all that difficult to put the pieces together.

She had an inkling that Hope had carried her back. And yet, she was struggling to see how the girl could have done so. When Josie had found her the night before, she seemed colorless, lifeless, empty. Certainly not up to facing that thing, heal her, carry her back to her room, and slip away without waking Lizzie - who, when asked about the events of the night prior, said she had fallen asleep not long after Josie had left.

  
  
  


Something in Hope snapped. It broke. And she yelled.

It was the first time in days - no, weeks - that she had felt something. And what she felt was pure terror. Horror even.

She had thought she was past her little  _ blip _ . When she had stopped outside the gym, listening to Josie’s not quite silent tears and feeling the need to go comfort the girl. She thought she was past all that. 

Apparently not, because along with her scream came a sonic boom. Both Josie and the monster were flung through the trees and the branches, landing flat on their backs what must have been 100 feet away from her.

The trees around her seemed to crumble.  _ No _ , she thought,  _ that’s not right _ . They dissolved. 

Not fully, they were still standing, but the bark of the trees surrounding her seemed to lie in a grainy pile at the bottom of each trunk. They were bare and smoldering, nearly all of their colour gone. The trees closest to her had lost all of their leaves too, leaving behind barren branches.

It was not a pretty sight.

She lifted herself off the ground, swiping a hand down to her legs to clean off the dirt as well as she could.

A feeling of dread lay in the pit of her stomach - although she’d never admit that to herself - as she made her way over to the two bodies. 

Josie was closer, but she refused to look. Rather she walked right past her, choosing instead to ensure that the  _ thing _ was dead. She couldn’t be sure because she really had no idea what it was, but it looked pretty dead to her. 

She took her time examining its lifeless form, constantly catching glimpses of Josie out of the corner of her eye before averting her gaze.

Hope was rather tempted to walk out then and there. Simply sneak back into the school, go to bed, and wake up in the morning, pretending nothing had happened. At least that’s what the  _ voice _ told her to do.

For once she ignored it.

  
  
  


As she stared down at Josie, her heart pounded in her chest, surely loud enough for the students back at school to hear. And although she could hear the faintest of heartbeats coming from Josie, she was terrified.

The same sort of fear she vaguely remembered when Josie had been shot, or when she had been sent to the prison world, or when she had been consumed by dark magic. Josie. Josie.  _ Josie _ .

Hope blinked in surprise when a tear fell onto Josie’s face. She recoiled, spinning around, thinking that someone must have been someone behind her. 

She blinked again, and again before she realised she was crying. Which was odd considering she didn’t feel unhappy.  _ Distressed _ ? Maybe. But she wasn’t unhappy. She certainly wasn’t happy either, so there the chance of her crying tears of joy were slim to none.

She set the thought aside when a voice in her head spoke. It was a new voice. It wasn’t telling her what to do, or how to feel. It was screaming.

‘ _ This is all my fault _ ,’ it would chant, ‘ _ This was me. I did this. _ ’

_ ‘I did this _ .’

_ ‘I did this _ .’

  
  
  


Hope carried Josie back to the school - casting an invisibility spell on the two of them just in case - and into her room. There was no point in trying to heal Josie in the woods, she hadn’t brought her herbs or her aunt's grimoires. Why would she have? All she wanted was to go for a run.

She tried the simple spells first. She tried everything she knew off the top of her head. But none of them worked. She tried the herbs too, but those didn’t work either. She flipped through the pages in her aunt's grimoire, trying every healing spell she found before she even fully understood how it worked.

Hope paused as she reached the last few pages in the grimoire. She remembered Freya telling her not to use these spells, that they were dangerous, that the only reason she hadn’t torn out the pages was that she might one day need them. And Hope needed it alright. 

Despite what her aunt had told her, Hope had read through the spells a couple of years ago. She knew one was a healing spell. She’d never tried any of them because they looked gruesome. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

Or something like that.

Reading through the spells was even worse the second time around. Knowing that she would actually have to use one of them.

It was then that the voice decided to make an appearance. She had somehow managed to block it out for the past hour but now it was back full force. Telling her to  _ turn away _ . To _ leave Josie _ .

For the second time, Hope ignored it.

  
  
  


As Hope recited the incantation, blood dripped from the cut she had made on her forearm. She felt as though the life was being sucked out of her. It felt like she was being drained. It hurt rather a lot too.

When she finished, she could hear Josie's heartbeat going steady, and saw the colour return to her face. She even twitched and for a second, Hope worried that she might wake up, but Josie lay still. She didn’t make another move.

Hope carried her back to her room, tucking her into bed and closing the door quietly behind her. When she returned to her room, she started cleaning up, blowing out the candles and putting everything back where it belonged. 

She walked over to the bathroom intended to wash the blood stains off her arms, like how she had done with the wooden floors moments ago. She rolled up her sleeves and stuck her arm under the sink. She pulled back seconds later, having felt a twinge of pain. She looked down in surprise. 

With the blood now gone, she could see her forearm clearly. 

And the cut hadn’t healed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to note that there will obviously be an explanation for why Hope is being so strange.
> 
> let me know what you think :)


End file.
